This invention relates to a system and method for enforcing vehicular parking violations via vehicle immobilizing boots.
Vehicular parking laws are typically enforced by issuing a summons and placing the summons on the vehicle. The owner of the vehicle reviews the summons on the vehicle, is then required to inquire as to the fine and pays the fine or appears in court to contest the summons. The enforcement of the payment of the fines is haphazard in that in many instances the vehicle owner does not pay the fine and accumulates summons and fines. The fines assessed may be increased substantially for repeat violators who are termed scofflaws, who ignore such summons.
One solution to insure payment of fines is to place a boot on the vehicle wheel. Such a boot is a device which is attached to the vehicle wheel to make operation of the vehicle impossible since the wheel is no longer able to roll on the pavement due to the presence of the boot. Such boots are commonly used and widely available. Such boots are typically cumbersome and heavy. For example, such boots are disclosed in Japanese patent JP 58076348, UK design patents 3008370 and 3007353, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,489,272; 1,530,622; 3,907,072; 4,768,359; 5,134,868; 5,315,848; 5,372,018; and 5,673,574, all incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
Boot systems of the type in use, while unpopular with motorists, have become more accepted. Thus, parking enforcement personnel place the oversize and cumbersome boot on a vehicle wheel, immobilizing the vehicle. The offender returns to the vehicle and can not use the vehicle. The offender is prompted by a sticker on the window to call the appropriate entity, e.g., the police, the court or an administrator in order to learn how to have the boot removed. The offender is prompted during the call to make his way to the police station, court or administrator, without his vehicle, to a payment location. The offender is required to pay the fine for this violation and all other outstanding violations, if any. In this regard, boot systems provide for catching scofflaws who have numerous outstanding parking violations. More specifically, once a boot is attached to a scofflaw's vehicle, the authorities can maintain control of the vehicle until all outstanding violations against the owner or operator of the vehicle are paid. Clearly, the use of the boot wheel lock is inconvenient to the offender who must try to obtain alternative transportation from what ever location he may have parked to the payment center, which could be some distance away and to which center there is no readily available transportation. Once the offender's account is settled, he or she must return to his vehicle seeking further transportation, while in parallel to the offender returning to his vehicle, to await a parking enforcement person to remove the boot. Such a person may or may not arrive at the offending vehicle in a timely manner, frustrating the offender. This process can take hours or even days, using up a portion of the collected fine by the summons issuing agency via the man hours spent in arranging for the removal of the boot and in the time necessary for removing the boot and also leaving a very disgruntled citizen. The present inventors recognize that such a system is not satisfactory. It is costly for both the motorist and the agency responsible for enforcement of the traffic laws. In some cases, the boot is used in lieu of towing on private property to insure payment of parking violation fines. The tow operator may not get to the private parking facility for hours to settle the claim.
The present inventors also recognize that at present there is a commercially available prior art electronic tagging device known as RFID (radio frequency identification). This device is known to be programmable and which transmits information that is programmed, such as a tag identification number unique to each tag or other information as desirable for a given implementation. Generally, an RFID tag includes a radio frequency (RF) transmitter, an RF receiver, an RF modulator, and a memory. The memory retains a digital code manifesting the identification number of the tag that is unique to each tag. The RF modulator extracts the digital code representing the identification number and other information as stored in the memory as a modulated signal which is applied to the RF transmitter. The RF receiver receives interrogation and control signals which manifest a request for the identification number and other information as may be stored in the memory. An interrogator unit transmits an interrogation signal to the tag to retrieve information stored in the tag. The interrogation unit may also transmit information to be stored in the tag and which information can be retrieved by an interrogator. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 6,265,973 which discloses such a tag system. A similar tag system is shown in FIG. 4 herein.
Of interest also is US Publication No. 2003 0222792 (Ser. No. 10/158,493) which discloses a parking meter monitoring system employing PDAs (personal digital assistant), host computer systems employing computers such as personal computers and data bases, a communication network and RFID transmitting and receiving devices for monitoring the status of parking meters. This publication is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.